Rogue
by fluidstatic
Summary: Revealing secrets does not always end in sorrow. Bal/Basch One-Shot. AU.


_A/N: This is a gift for my dear friend Tersa, a.k.a PsychicPirate, who has been an inspiration to me in my writing, and a great comfort when I'm feeling like a talentless hack. I don't usually approve of Bal/Basch on principle (Die-hard BalFran shipper here!) but when the idea came to me to write this, I couldn't let it slide, and it flew out of me faster than anything else I've written! _

_This does not take place in the game-universe or the AU I'm using for my book; it is its own private world, a true one-shot. If you don't like the thought of Bal/Basch, don't read. Kind of goes without saying. By contrast, if you like it please let me know. This is my first foray into a yaoi pairing and I'd love to hear what others think._

_Here you are, Tersa my friend. Consider this repayment for your kindness to me in my literary endeavors. xoxox_

**Rogue**

Balthier was alone by the fire for the second time in as many nights, contemplating the stars. Fran, the princess, and the children were all in bed, and Basch had stolen away up the beach on his own, searching for coffers that might contain supplies or stray gil.

The night had cleared, but the air was no less humid, and Balthier despaired the heat that clung to his skin. Sighing heavily, he tugged his limp, wrinkled linen shirt over his head and crumpled it impatiently into a ball. Modesty be damned; the scars across his back were of no consequence to the cliffs and tide-pools that surrounded him. Balthier had no secrets to keep from the sea.

A movement down the beach caught his eye. He squinted, and readied himself to extinguish the fire if required; the he saw from the figure's heavy, sure gait that it was Basch, and he relaxed.

Fifty meters from the fire, Basch raised an arm high and waved it once in greeting; he held something in his hand.

"What have you there, Captain?" Balthier called, intrigued.

Basch lowered his arm and quickened his pace; it was difficult work in his heavy Dalmascan boots, but he managed at last to pick his way over the sand to the fireside.

"A gift for you," Basch said. "I found it on the board at the hunters' camp, perhaps two miles south of here." He held out a weather-beaten sheet of parchment, folded in half roughly.

Balthier took it, unfolded it. A pencil sketch of his own face smirked back at him.

_WANTED_

_The Sky Pirate Balthier_

_Outlaw known for his crimes against Archadia, Dalmasca, Rozarria. Most recently suspected an accomplice in the death of Judge Magister Bergan of Fourth Bureau. Mark promotion to High Alert. Request for live capture rescinded. Armed and dangerous. Kill on sight._

_Reward: 750,000 gil_

Balthier gave a low whistle, smiled to himself. "Ah, the airships one could buy with that kind of money... I have half a mind to design one myself. Should I die, Fran could sell it to the lucky sod who cuts me down at last, and never want for anything again."

"I had planned to burn the notice upon my return here to camp, but as you are awake you may do with it as you like," Basch said gravely.

Balthier inclined his head in thanks and set the piece of paper under a rock next to his knee. Fran would get quite the laugh out of it in the morning. Then he reached into his pack and produced a hip flask filled with Bhujerban Madhu; he unscrewed the cap and toasted Basch with it wryly.

"To my continued survival in uncertain skies, improbable as it may be," Balthier said merrily, and took a quick nip from the flask. Basch surprised him by producing a flask of his own from an inner pocket of his vest. He saluted the pirate with it, unscrewed the cap, and drank in turn. Balthier grinned and turned away from the fire a moment to close the fastenings of his pack; When he turned back again, the captain had sat beside him near the fire, and his eyes were solemn.

"If I may..." Basch said, a hint of hesitancy in his voice; he cut himself off, shook his head, and returned his gaze to the flask he held.

"Speak freely, Captain. I'm not Her Majesty, after all," Balthier rejoined, without looking up from the fire. Basch slowly turned his eyes back to Balthier; his gaze was once again dark with the strange kind of sadness that Balthier had come to expect from him.

"If I may; how came you by the scars you bear?"

Balthier blinked somnolently at the fire and did not reply immediately. He had nearly forgotten he was not wearing his shirt.

He had a thousand versions of the story tucked away in his mind; most involved torture by prison guards, trouble with a pack of ill-trained mastiffs, or particularly nasty corporal punishment at Cid's hands. The truth he saved for himself, but if he were to ever lay the truth of the thing plain, this would be the moment to do so. Basch would understand better than anyone the weight of the secret these marks bore. If Balthier truly were to cut ties with the past, as he'd told the princess was his desire, he knew clearly that he would have to confess that past first and foremost.

"The same hand that dealt your wounds dealt mine, I fear," he said at length, trying in vain to affect a tone of resigned nonchalance, as he had always done with other, less painful revelations to his character. The ruse failed; he felt his face fall, and Basch's gaze trained ever more intently on his profile as he picked up the wanted poster and set to tearing it into long, ragged strips.

Basch's voice was whispery with tension. "You... You speak of Gabranth?"

Balthier could not speak, so he merely nodded, focused on the scraps of parchment multiplying in his hands. Basch leaned toward him slightly.

"What sin could you have committed against my brother, that he would cause you to bear scars?"

Balthier's lip twitched in a slight smirk.

"Sin, indeed..."

He threw a piece of the wanted poster into the fire; it crackled and spat a moment before curling into ash.

"I met your brother face-to-face for the first time the day I was initiated into the magistrate. He was gracious, professional, admirable... and beautiful. Indeed it would seem I loved him, for a time."

Basch frowned, confused. Balthier chuckled to himself.

"Yes, the infamous heartbreaker of Ivalice, the Pirate Balthier, prefers the attentions of men. What irony. Do not think me remiss, however... Fran is lovely, nay, perfect. Too perfect, I'll warrant. I would that I might love her utterly, but it would seem I was meant for a different sort of affection. I laugh to think what my father would say, if he knew."

Balthier smiled ruefully, but there was not a hint of true laughter in him at the thought now. He threw another shred of parchment into the fire and pressed on.

"I minded my affairs well for a time; my bureau and his rarely conferred. But now and again, we crossed paths. I, a man of barely sixteen, could barely hide my affection for him, and in the end one of my men caught wind of my feelings. As you can imagine, the word spread with all haste... for as you may have guessed, men in the intimate company of men are not suffered lightly in Archadia."

Basch nodded mutely.

"When word reached the other members of the court that I was a suspected sodomite, it was determined that I should have such unlawful conduct beaten out of me before it caused any sort of political trouble. Of course, t'was Gabranth who volunteered his hand to the whip... and you know as well as I how deep the whip can cut when driven by your brother's fury and fear."

Balthier studied an insect bite on his arm for a moment to hide his wavering façade; if the captain were to see him weep, he would never forgive himself. He could feel the captain watching him, and the weight of the attention burned him.

Basch laid a firm hand on Balthier's arm. The touch of his fingers was strangely cool, deeply comforting.

"I am truly sorry, Balthier."

Balthier shook his head dismissively, grasping for a way out of the terribly awkward spot the truth had led him into. He fingered a particularly ragged, raised white scar that bloomed on his shoulder, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"But if I am really to speak the truth, Captain, Gabranth didn't cause the worst of these scars..."

Basch's shoulders tensed visibly, and he glanced sidelong at the web of white scar tissue across Balthier's back, contemplating what could have done more damage than Gabranth's glass-laced whip.

Balthier sighed faintly, and allowed a trace of false sadness into his eyes.

"Fran has been known to be rather... overenthusiastic in her affections now and then... But indeed, there is nothing to be done. I must soldier on irregardless."

Basch frowned for a split second, confused, and then the color rose in his face as he burst into a rolling peal of laughter. Balthier grinned to hear the sound fly out into the sea and be swallowed by the rush of waves; the mirth in it cheered him greatly.

"I knew I'd see you laugh one day, dear Captain," he said with a smirk, toasting the man with his flask of Madhu once again.

Basch grinned and shook his head at his own flask. "Strange. I've not laughed in so very long..."

"I imagine not," Balthier said solemnly, and tossed yet another scrap of parchment into the fire; it crackled and curled away into ash. The two men watched it contemplatively for a moment. At length Basch turned again from the fire to Balthier; there was an odd guilty look in his eyes.

"Surely it was not easy, living and working as you did in my brother's company, and with such secrets to keep, affections and scars alike... I am sorry."

"I wish you wouldn't apologize for deeds not your own, Captain. And please, do not vilify the man utterly. I assure you, despite his fear of my affections, the Gabranth I knew was a good man."

"Aye," Basch said, hoarsely. "Noah was indeed a good man, once; I imagine he took my mother's name in hopes of preserving that. I still do not believe t'was my brother who slew My Lord Raminas, though I saw it with my own eyes." He bowed his head and stared grimly into the fire. "The brother I loved would do nothing to harm a man of peace such as Raminas B'Nargin Dalmasca. I know this to my core."

A long stillness followed; somewhere down the beach, a sea-bird called out into the surf.

"_A man's name doth make to bind him to his past,"_ Balthier said quietly to himself, gazing vacantly into the fire. _"Thus here I reject both name and hist'ry. 'Tis naught but a dream, a dream of tears and of weakness which I shall not linger within. Accept me now as that which I am, sweet Nivaeh; a rogue at fate's mercy, driv'n not by hope, but by fear; my only comfort in the death of all I have lost. My time is short; release me now to my wand'ring, and one day, lead me to my peace."_

When Balthier looked up from his recitation, he found the captain gazing at him, transfixed.

"Tis beautiful ... What is it?"

"One of my favourite books of poetry growing up was _Cavandaugh's Tales of the Lost_," Balthier murmured. "My father always told me it would give me nightmares, but I found it comforting... so many broken hearts made me think of the good in my life, and made me feel I did not suffer alone when in despair. That passage was always my favourite of them all. Ironic that I should come to live by it, eh?"

"...Aye."

Balthier couldn't discern what exactly quieted the captain's voice and weighted his glance, but the effect was eerie. His handsome face, half-lit in the fire, reminded the pirate of sculptures he had seen as a boy. The Anathaeum had been thick with them; busts of scholars and soldiers alike, rendered in granite, marble, limestone, glass. Each bore the same expression - sadness mixed with certainty – that spoke of a dark past and an unsteady future. To see such a look in the flesh sent a shiver down Balthier's back. To hide the tension that he felt rising in his face, he stretched nonchalantly, pretended to yawn.

Basch did not avert his gaze at first; the flint-blue eyes he shared with his twin flickered with a question, but then turned to the fire once more. Balthier threw the last few pieces of the bounty poster into the flames; they caught fire with a robust _crack _and let off a single spark that spiraled into the air.

Balthier's next thought found his mouth too quickly; his own voice surprised him.

"I loved your brother, and was remiss in those feelings, I fear. But..."

Basch's gaze had followed the errant spark into the air; now he returned his gaze to the pirate's face, and there was a strange expectancy there.

"Aye...?"

"If I may have a turn in speaking freely... I find that what I loved in him, I now see most plain in you."

Basch blinked once, uncomprehending for a moment, and then his face darkened slightly with the gravity of realization.

"I see..."

A long moment passed. Balthier felt himself falling through a thousand doubts, waiting for the chill of rejection to find him once again.

To the pirate's deepest astonishment, Basch laid his wide, calloused palm to Balthier's cheek; his fingers trembled, but his eyes were sure and calm. His thumb grazed the side of Balthier's neck, a feathery touch that sent a strange hopeful tremor through him. Balthier averted his eyes from basch's handsome, grave countenance and watched the last of the wanted poster curling away into ashes.

"After all that's transpired, I am loath to admit it, but... I cannot lie to a man of such honour."

He laid his hand to Basch's chest and felt the man's heart, beating solidly and slowly like a drum.

"You are what I desire now; indeed perhaps it was you I desired from the start."

Basch titled the pirate's face slightly with a slight motion of his fingers; his eyes were soft now, bearing a look of warmth and of melancholy.

"You honour me, Balthier."

When Balthier pressed his lips to Basch's, he thought for a moment of a bird, the way it shivers its wings and ducks its head in hesitation before spreading its wings for takeoff. He felt the hesitation, the longing, the excitement of impendent flight, and then his name came into his mouth.

"Ffamran," the pirate whispered. "My name is Ffamran."

Basch nodded.

"We may be rogues at fate's mercy, but there is time left for us yet, Ffamran," the knight said, drawing the young man's cheek close to his heart.

"There is time," the pirate agreed, and closed his eyes.


End file.
